For Venice, we’ve created an installation that completely transforms the Canadian pavilion, practically doubling its surface area. Canadassimo is an immersive circuit composed of four distinct spaces, one of which is outdoors. The installation appropriates the pavilion and alters its appearance, so that its exhibition function is no longer evident. It’s a strategy – practically a modus operandi – that characterises our work, a kind of syndrome that impels us to systematically blur the parameters of spaces and art objects. Maybe we should see an art psychoanalyst!.

Visitors access Canadassimo through a typical Quebec dépanneur, a type of small convenience store; it’s as if there were no exhibition, just this public service. Behind the counter of the shop, which is crammed full of stuff, through a doorway with a bamboo curtain, can be glimpsed a private area under renovation that looks like an apartment – the loft inhabited by the owner of the store. At the end of a passage formed by the bookshelves surrounding this domestic room is another completely chaotic, crowded space where the grocer-tinkerer makes things – what we’ve called the ‘studio’. Finally, a metal staircase leads from the pavilion’s inner courtyard to an extension on the front of the building. This is a kind of outdoor balcony crisscrossed with a tangled network of metal gutters, which offers a marvellous view over the Giardini.

Venice is not something you plan to make part of your career. It’s the most incredible honour that came entirely out of the blue. We were selected for the Biennale during what was already proving to be the busiest year of our career! But we leapt at the chance to take our immersive, labyrinthine installations to a whole new level: instead of transforming one or a couple of exhibition galleries, we decided to metamorphose an entire building. To match the extravagance of this prestigious event, we’ve responded with the chaotic extravagance that defines BGL!

A characteristic of Canadassimo is that it’s tailored to its venue: the installation was inspired by the building’s unusual layout, its rather 'shabby' look and its position within the Giardini. This local element is always extremely important to us in the creation of site-specific works. From our very first visit the pavilion struck us as congenial and on a domestic scale that made it suitable for either a public or a private purpose – very different from the traditional 'white cube.' We found this architectural ambiguity odd, given its role in a Biennale where the pavilions are intended for the exhibition of art. The idea of creating a fake convenience store was directly inspired by the location of the pavilion, which is slightly cut off from the neighbouring buildings and would actually make a great service area.